Photo a day for Lent: beloved

beloved. 

"So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?"

- Wendell Berry

I have heard it noted that we have words for when we lose a spouse.  Widow, widower.  We have a word for children without parents. Orphan.  But we don't have a word for a mother who has lost her child.  The sorrow is too great for any word to ever hold it all.  

And at the townwide performance of a play, done in memory of her son by the cast he acted with, they asked her not to cry.  "Look at how many children you have gained," the bubbliest one said, "we are all your children now."  

Beloved.